To compile his new book,
My Favorite Place on Earth,Jerry Camarillo Dunn Jr., interviewed dozens of famous people -- from Natalie Portman to the Dalai Lama -- about the places they loved most.
He'll be guest blogging about his experiences here for the next few weeks. Click here for recent posts.

Sometimes we reach a crossroads in life and take an unexpected turn that changes everything. It happened to custom clothier
Manuel Cuevas
- known simply as Manuel - the designer who turned Johnny Cash into the "Man in Black" and put Elvis in a jumpsuit.

"We all have one place that makes us think: Wow! What happened to me there changed my life!" he says. Coming from Mexico to Los Angeles as a tailor at age 21, Manuel soon was making clothes for Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. But he grew bored with tuxedos. "Some were black and some were white, but it never went anywhere from there. I thought: This isn't my idea of designing. This is just monkey see, monkey do. I need to find something different.

"In the early fifties, a girlfriend asked me to go to the
Rose Parade in Pasadena
. . . There were people riding horses, and I had never seen anything so flamboyant in my whole life. The colors! The glitter! The embroidery! To see macho men dressed up in clothes with flowers on them, wearing hats all adorned with rhinestones - it just freaked me out. I thought, Oh my God, that's what I want to do!

"I got crazy making clothes for the rock 'n' rollers, from Ricky Nelson to the Rolling Stones, from the Jackson Five to the Grateful Dead . . . I made some clothes for the Beatles. They were so English, those kids, especially John. So I decided to make them some colorful outfits. I used leftover fabrics - can you imagine that? I did it as a joke, thinking they were never going to like them. But they loved them! These ended up as part of the Sgt. Pepper uniforms that the Beatles wore on the album cover.

"More than anything else, designing clothes has been fun. It led me to a beautiful, textured world full of truly fascinating people. And it all goes back to the Rose Parade. The parade filled me up, man. It just knocked me out. I heard my calling, and it changed my life."

Can you think of a time and place in your life that was a crossroads, that turned you in a new direction? Do you think it was destiny? Coincidence? Luck? Or perhaps all a wonderful mystery? (Read other remarkable stories in My Favorite Place on Earth; info at
www.myfavoriteplacenatgeo.com.)

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About This Blog

Cultural, Authentic & Sustainable: This is your brain on travel. We showcase the essence of place, what's unique and original, and what locals cherish most about where they live. And we highlight places, practices, and people that are on the front lines of sustainable travel—travel that preserves places’ essential uniqueness for future generations. more...